Prove, when to our lips we have pressed them,
Only dead-sea apples at last?
And why are the crowns, and the crosses,
So wondrous inequally classed?

Ask it, ye, over and over,
Let the winds waft your question on high,
Till memory wanes with the ages,
Till the stars in eternity die.
And out from the bloom and the sunshine,
From the rainbow o'erarching the sky,
From the night and the gloom and the tempest,
Echo will answer you, "Why?"


* * * * *



Suggested by reading, "Lights and Shades" in San Francisco.

OUT IN THE COLD.

Out from a narrow, crowded street,
Sick'ning resort of shame and crime,
Wearing upon her brow a curse,
Out in the darkness, lost to sight,
Out in the dreary Winter night,
Fleeing a fate than Nessus worse.
On through the gathering mist and dew